Jeanne D'Arc: her life and death eBook

private instructions, through her saints, rather than
to the guiding of any priest. The chief ecclesiastical
dignitary of her own party had just held her up to
the reprobation of the people for this cause:
she was too independent, so proud that she would take
no advice but acted according to her own will.
The more accustomed a Churchman is to experience the
unbounded devotion and obedience of women, the more
enraged he is against those who judge for themselves
or have other guides on whom they rely. Jeanne
was, beside all other sins alleged against her, a
presumptuous woman: and very few of these men
had any desire to acquit her. They were little
accustomed to researches which were solely intended
to discover the truth: their principle rather
was, as it has been the principle of many, to obtain
proofs that their own particular way of thinking was
the right one. It is not perhaps very good even
for a system of doctrine when this is the principle
by which it is tested. It is more fatal still,
on this principle, to judge an individual for death
or for life. It will be abundantly proved, however,
by all that is to follow, that in face of this tribunal,
learned, able, powerful, and prejudiced, the peasant
girl of nineteen stood like a rock, unmoved by all
their cleverness, undaunted by their severity, seldom
or never losing her head, or her temper, her modest
steadfastness, or her high spirit. If they hoped
to have an easy bargain of her, never were men more
mistaken. Not knowing a from b, as she herself
said, untrained, unaided, she was more than a match
for them all.

Round about this centre of eager intelligence, curiosity,
and prejudice, the cathedral and council chamber teeming
with Churchmen, was a dark and silent ring of laymen
and soldiers. A number of the English leaders
were in Rouen, but they appear very little. Winchester,
who had very lately come from England with an army,
which according to some of the historians would not
budge from Calais, where it had landed, “for
fear of the Maid”—­was the chief person
in the place, but did not make any appearance at the
trial, curiously enough; the Duke of Bedford we are
informed was visible on one shameful occasion, but
no more. But Warwick, who was the Governor of
the town, appears frequently and various other lords
with him. We see them in the mirror held up to
us by the French historians, pressing round in an
ever narrowing circle, closing up upon the tribunal
in the midst, pricking the priests with perpetual sword
points if they seem to loiter. They would have
had everything pushed on, no delay, no possibility
of escape. It is very possible that this was
the case, for it is evident that the Witch was deeply
obnoxious to the English, and that they were eager
to have her and her endless process out of the way;
but the evidence for their terror and fierce desire
to expedite matters is of the feeblest. A canon
of Rouen declared at the trial that he had heard it
said by Maitre Pierre Morice, and Nicolas l’Oyseleur,